This morning while engaging in my normal morning routine of casually checking email, gleaning news headlines (which aren’t any different from any other day), and waiting for my brain to wake up, I saw the following caption on an MSN™ slideshow: I’m a Telemarketer – Here’s How to Get Rid of Me.
I chuckled. Why? Because telemarketers are like those burrs you get stuck to your clothes after traipsing around in a field or the forest.
However …
I needed a good laugh, so I continued to view the slides and read what was written beneath.
Slide one had the following information:
Even successful telemarketers have an estimated 96 percent chance of being turned down, says one company
My counter is this – since the advent of Caller ID, I have not picked up the phone for a number I do not recognize. Not only that but if you’ve called my number once, there’s a 100% chance I have blocked your number (and every spoofed number you use/will use in the future) so it’s auto-rejected and my phone won’t even ring. If your company wants to waste time and money making calls to dead-ends who am I to stop you?
The next paragraph reads:
When you answer, I’ll try to sell the product to you using the Three Noes rule: Don’t let the customer go until she has said no three times during the phone call. After the first two noes, the client becomes more likely to spend money. If you don’t purchase the item, I will log everything you’ve said and suggest calling you back another time. These are logged as “callbacks”—tiny gold nuggets for telemarketers to follow up on. And thus, the cycle continues.
I will concede there are days when I’m feeling quite peckish so I will answer. The instant you, Dear Telemarketer, start your spiel, I immediately speak over you to let you know that I am not interested and to remove my number from your list. Then I hang up. I do not wait for a response. By law, you need to remove my number from your list.
But then again, telemarketing companies seem to ignore the Do Not Call list anyway so it really isn’t a surprise that ignore the demand to remove my digits from your list.
Also, Telemarketer, you should note this: I am not one who is likely to spend money if you keep pushing me after I’ve said no once, let alone twice. In fact, the only thing you will succeed at is pissing me off and I’ll hang up on you anyway. After which, you should refer to what was written a few paragraphs earlier.
The slides go on, of course, to inform that one should not immediately hang up or the number will be marked as a “no answer”, then the telemarketer will call back. I’ve already blocked the number so, as mentioned previously, you go ahead and keep calling. The click-bait slides continued to pretty much repeat what’s already been mentioned.
What other methods can be used to stop telemarketers from calling?
There are a number of ways to put an end to telemarketers calling your number, including, but not limited to:
- Phone Settings – You can set up your phone to only allow people in your contact list to call/text
- Register on the Do Not Call website
- Install the TrueCaller: Caller ID & Block app on your phone. I’ve been using this app for years and absolutely love it. The free version is fine. I elected to buy the premium version. Since I do have my own business, the Assistant option is perfect as it allows my potential clients to reach me and not get blocked.
- Visit Stop Unwanted Robocalls and Texts | Federal Communications Commission (fcc.gov)
How do you deal with telemarketing calls? Let us know in the comments below